History

Located in the historic town of Gondar, Ethiopia, the University of Gondar is one of the oldest and most well established higher education institutions in the country. Our University was established in 1954 as a Public Health College and Training Center (PHC & TC) in joint effort between the Imperial Ethiopian government, WHO, United States Operation Mission to Ethiopia, and UNICEF. Dictated by the pressing health needs that existed in the 1940s and 1950s the PHC & TC quickly became established as a pioneer center for public health practice serving as a key source of Ethiopia’s health professionals. It remains the Ethiopia’s oldest medical training institution.

This was also the era that gave birth to the philosophy of team approach and community based teaching of health professionals. During the 1950s all 2nd year clinical nurses, sanitarians and 3rd year health officers would go out into the community and provide health promotion as well as preventative, curative and rehabilitative services. This early work has developed and evolved into the Team Training Program (TTP)within the current College of Medicine and Health Science.

Run by the Ministry of Health until 1960, the Training Center joined Haile Selassie I University - now known as Addis Ababa University, in 1961 by the act of internal decree known as “Charter of Haile Selassie I University”. In 1978, by bilateral agreement between Karl Marx University in Germany and Addis Ababa University, a medical faculty was established within the Training Center – a major milestone in the established of medical education in our country.

During the following years we have evolved according to the changing needs of our society and endeavoured to tailor our institution to the address the urgent needs of our country. In 1980/81 the Training Center was renamed Gondar College of Medical Sciences (GCMS). Medical training was provided at the College by German medical experts, creating opportunities for the subsequent training of Ethiopian staff in Germany. GCMS gained autonomy from Addis Ababa University in 1992. In 2001 the first new Faculty, the Faculty of Management Sciences and Economics, was created. The spring of 2003 saw the next phase of development, changing the name from GCMS to Gondar University College and creating three new faculties. In 2004 the institution was converted into University of Gondar and through subsequent years the University opened 4 more academic units.

Through it may incarnations the University of Gondar maintained a steady commitment to quality education, focused research and relevant community services. Currently the University is made up of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, the Faculties of Agriculture; Veterinary Medicine, Business and Economics Social Sciences and Humanities and Natural and Computational Sciences, and the Schools of Law, Technology and Education. We offer 56 undergraduate and 64 postgraduate programs in our regular, extension, distance and summer programs (including a Public Health PhD program which is handled in collaboration with Addis Continental Institute of Public Health).